How Fast is Fast Enough?

Over the past few weeks I’ve found myself in numerous conversations in which people confessed to feeling stressed to or beyond their capacity. A lot of the stories have to do with trying to keep up with an impossibly fast world, being “on” 24 hours a day, and needing to know everything instantaneously, deliver results NOW, and in general keep up with everything, all the time. Really? REALLY?! Have you heard the news: Stress kills? And here’s the other message you need to hear: You create 100% of your own stress! In the context of all these conversations about speed and stress, I received this simple reminder from Seth Godin’s blog:

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The value of breaking news (news = whatever is new to you) is dramatically overrated, and the cost of keeping up with what someone else thinks is urgent is just too high.If it’s important today, it will be important tomorrow. Far more productive to do the work instead of monitoring what’s next.[Exceptions: Emergency room doctors, producers at CNN, day traders.]

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Especially given that this comes from one of the most followed and prolific bloggers on the internet, I thought this was just a great reminder that success in today’s world is not always about being fastest. Do we REALLY need to know everything, right now? The Speed of Life need only stress you if you choose to let it…